India's education minister ousted by Gen Z protests after medical school exam leak; Modi vows overhaul

India's education minister resigned amid a nationwide outcry over leaked medical school entrance exam questions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged a sweeping overhaul of the country's examination system on Sunday, a day after the minister stepped down, in an effort to calm public anger.

According to Reuters and other outlets, Modi posted a video statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, saying the medical school entrance exam "must be trustworthy and transparent" and that technology must be used to the fullest. He then promised to "work to restore the credibility of the exams as quickly as possible" and said he would form a high-level task force to reform the examination system.

The statement was Modi's first public response after Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday following protests by the Generation Z online collective known as the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). Although Modi did not mention Pradhan in the video, the statement was widely seen as an acknowledgment of the public demands led by the CJP.

The resignation of India's education minister and the prime minister's pledge to reform the examination system both trace back to a medical school admissions scandal.

Medical school is fiercely competitive in India, a country where academic ambition runs high. Aspiring doctors must pass an exam called NEET to qualify for admission, and this year about 2.205 million candidates sat the test at more than 5,000 examination centers across the country. Before the exam was held in May, however, evidence emerged that questions had been leaked and traded on Telegram, and education authorities ultimately ordered a re-examination last month.

The fallout from the leak was larger than expected. Ten candidates who could not bear the pressure of retaking the exam died by suicide. As criticism of the unprecedented admissions scandal intensified, calls for education reform grew louder among the opposition and the public. When demonstrators took to the streets, India's Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant drew backlash for remarks widely interpreted as mocking unemployed young people and comparing them to cockroaches.

Protesters embraced the insult, adopting the name Cockroach Janata Party for their movement. Generation Z in India rallied strongly behind the CJP, whose Instagram account amassed more than 20 million followers. On Monday, July 20, thousands of demonstrators marched on Parliament in New Delhi, and protests also broke out in West Bengal in the east and Telangana in the south.

The campaign to oust the education minister, led by the CJP, ultimately forced Pradhan out. Modi announced that new legislation to prevent exam paper leaks would be submitted to parliament as a follow-up measure, and said tougher laws would bring stricter punishment for those responsible.

The high-level task force Modi announced will be led by Nandan Nilekani, former chairman and co-founder of Indian IT giant Infosys. Nilekani, sometimes called the "Bill Gates of Bangalore," is a prominent figure in India's technology industry and the man behind Aadhaar, the country's biometric digital identification system. Infosys became the first Indian company to list on NASDAQ in 1999.